Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva plc, has acquired a portfolio of UK onshore wind farms from RES (Renewable Energy Systems) in one of the largest single acquisitions made by its infrastructure platform to date.
The portfolio includes three operational assets: Jacks Lane Wind Farm (six turbines, 15MW) located in Norfolk; Woolley Hill Wind Farm (four turbines, 10MW), located in Cambridgeshire; the recently completed Den Brook Wind Farm (nine turbines, 18MW) in Devon; and the Turncole Wind Farm (seven turbines, 17.5MW), which is currently under construction in Essex.
The Jacks Lane and Woolley Hill wind farms have been operational since April 2015 and Turncole Wind Farm is due to become operational in early 2017. Nordex supplied the turbines for three of the projects, with N100 machines at Woolley Hill and Turncole and N90 machines at Jack’s Lane. The turbines at Den Brook are Vestas V90 machines.
RES will continue to provide asset management services to the projects, undertaking the day-to-day operational responsibility for the wind farms, including delivering and managing the community benefit initiatives.
Aviva Investors and RES are also currently finalising the sale of a fifth wind farm also located in the UK.
The acquisitions were made on behalf of the Aviva Investors Infrastructure Income Fund and represent a further addition to its existing portfolio of investments in wind energy. The fund invests in a range of UK infrastructure sectors, with particular focus on the low carbon infrastructure (primarily energy and energy efficiency) and social infrastructure sectors.
Jolanta Touzard, associate director at Aviva Investors, says: “We continue to expand our activities in the UK infrastructure market and believe that investments such as this provide secure and long-dated income streams for our clients. We have developed an excellent relationship with RES and look forward to continuing to work with them as we further expand our investment activities.”
Rachel Ruffle, RES’ UK managing director, says: “RES is delighted to be strengthening our relationship with Aviva Investors with this significant acquisition, which demonstrates the attraction of renewable energy projects in the UK to leading investors in UK energy infrastructure.
“RES now looks forward to completing the projects currently under construction and managing the wind farms’ operations, as part of our ever growing asset management portfolio of onshore wind and solar projects that now stands at 2,200 MW globally.”
Advisers to Aviva Investors were CMS Cameron McKenna (legal), OST Energy (technical) and Grant Thornton (financial).
